Car Accident Lawyer in Downey

What do Downey’s crash figures show for car accidents?

In the California Office of Traffic Safety rankings for 2023, where rank 1 is the worst in the group, Downey placed 3rd of 62 California cities of comparable size for total people killed and injured in traffic collisions, with 736 victims. Only two cities in its population group ranked worse. Nighttime collisions, which the state counts from 9:00pm to 2:59am, ranked 3rd of 62 with 81 collisions, putting Downey in the worst twentieth of its group. Hit and run ranked 10th of 62 with 64 collisions, the worst sixth. Speed related collisions ranked 21st of 62 with 76. These rankings are rate based, weighted against an OTS population estimate of 111,891 and roughly 1,031,230 daily vehicle miles travelled, so they say Downey is worse than cities its size rather than that it has the highest raw counts in California.

The nighttime rank is the one that changes how a Downey car accident claim is run. A city that ranks 3rd of 62 for darkness-hour collisions while ranking only 21st for speed does not primarily have a speeding problem. It has a visibility, lighting and driver-condition problem. Alcohol involved victims ranked 27th of 62 with 58, and victims of collisions involving a driver aged 21 to 34 who had been drinking ranked 16th of 62 with 36. So street lighting, signal phasing, sight lines and the time stamps on any nearby camera carry more weight here than they would in a daytime collision, and all of that evidence is perishable. The hit and run rank points somewhere else again: where the other driver is never identified, the claim usually runs against the uninsured motorist cover on your own policy, under notice requirements set by that policy rather than by statute.

Who investigates depends on which road you were on. Downey has its own municipal police department, so a collision on a city street is normally a Downey Police Department matter. We have not been able to verify the Department’s current collision report procedure, records address, opening hours or fee from a published source, so we will not print one. Ask the Department directly rather than relying on a figure quoted on a law firm page, this one included. Collisions on Interstate 5, Interstate 605 and Interstate 105 are normally California Highway Patrol matters, on roadway owned by the state rather than the City, which changes who holds the report and who any public defendant would be.

Ownership also decides a road defect claim. Downey Public Works reports maintaining 210 miles of streets inside 12.6 square miles, so a surface defect, a failed signal or an obstructed sight line on a Downey street points at the City, while the same defect on the I-5, I-605 or I-105 points at the state. The stretch of I-5 through Downey, between the San Gabriel River Bridge and the Rio Hondo River Bridge, is officially the Downey Police Officer Ricardo Galvez Memorial Highway, named by the Legislature in 2016.

Where is a Downey car accident case filed, and what are the deadlines?

Two deadlines run in parallel and the shorter governs: two years from the date of injury against another driver under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, but six months to present a written claim against a public entity under Government Code section 911.2. The courthouse is where pages about Downey most often go wrong. There is a Downey Courthouse, at 7500 East Imperial Highway, but it takes criminal and traffic matters only and has no civil division at all, so no civil injury case is filed or heard there. Los Angeles Superior Court Local Rule 2.3(a)(1)(A) requires every unlimited civil action for bodily injury, wrongful death or damage to personal property to be filed in the judicial district where the incident arose. Downey sits in the Southeast District, and the Court’s own Filing Court Locator returns a single answer for Downey addresses: the Norwalk Courthouse, 12720 Norwalk Boulevard, Norwalk.

More Downey detail sits on the Downey personal injury page, and the wider practice on the Los Angeles car accident page. Downey’s other collision pages cover pedestrian, bicycle and motorcycle claims. If your matter is a drug, device or product claim rather than a collision, Broukhim Legal PC also takes on mass tort and complex litigation work for people living in and around Downey.